


Your Son is Gone

by vaultboii



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Kylo Ren Angst, Kylo Ren Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 06:05:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6412012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaultboii/pseuds/vaultboii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there lived an universe where everything was different. Where the man we knew called Kylo Ren called himself Ben, and the smuggler Han Solo was nothing more than a murderer of innocents. The Rebels controlled everything, and the First Order lurked in the shadows, revolting against every movement by the diabolical government. </p>
<p>In other words, Kylo's good and Han's bad. No one is happy about this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Son is Gone

**Author's Note:**

> This story, honestly, was created just with the notation, "What if Kylo Ren and Han Solo switched places?" Then it became, "What if the Dark Side was good, and the Jedi are evil?" Then it became this, leading me to believe, well, what the heck, I'll put it online for the internet to judge. 
> 
> EXTREME SPOILER ALERT AHEAD: take caution before reading, dear Padawans. 
> 
> (part of the contest Twist Fates on deviantart)

At the first look, Kylo knew it was him.

It was this awful feeling that told him in whispers, this swell in his chest screaming crimson murder repeatedly as he grabbed the pillar next to him for aided support, tongue hushed in speechless shock. He could only stare as the figure brushed oblivious by his presence, the leather in his mask the only thing muting the uneven breaths that not even his lungs could control. His hands shook; he tried to halt their vibrating, but failed, letting his gloves greedily soak up the movements with delight. He knew that Force: the scent of brash and recklessness, too similar to the same one that had cheered him, cared for him when he was little. 

_How could it not be his?_

Restrained, his lips parted to noiselessly mouth at nothing, feeling the humidity of his mask bring jittery sweat down the back of his neck. His legs stiffened, rigid in the midst of the static filling his knees. He was merely jelly cemented in breathless shock that took form of a human, mutely watching the figure’s back grow farther away from him, down the path towards doom’s day. Where was the smile he once knew on the man’s face? He knew this man. He knew him, grew with him, laughed with him, and yet...nothing. The thing in front of him was not the man he once knew. He was just a faint echo, twisted by the dark ways. 

No. The man he once knew was not lost. The man he once knew was still there. 

His legs drove forward without warning, abruptly marching ahead advancing to the bridge right above where he knew death awaited to those who fell. The last bomb ticked online as he past it, but he could do nothing, nothing but charge forward towards the figure. He could feel Hux’s confusion as his body led him to the smuggler that he once knew, felt Hux’s stare pierce his back with alarm. Grabbing onto the side of the bridge, he paused to draw nervous breath, hands trembling oh-so-violently. The unaware figure continued on. 

His wordless vocal chords suddenly found grip.

“DAD!”

The figure in black stopped. His throat contracted slowly as the Smuggler slowly turned to the sound of his voice. “...Kylo Ren.” The voice sounded genuinely shocked, cold to the tone. “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.”

He said nothing, letting go of the bridge. Strength rushed into his knees, replacing jelly with strong steel. The awful feeling vanished, as if the confirmation that it was indeed his father scared it off. His hands lost the nervousness, stiff at his sides as he took one step, cautious, adequately pushing gradually towards Han Solo. 

His father seemed to be taken aback by his brashness, but made no indication of backing off. 

There was only silence. Kylo took another step. 

“Take off that mask.” The man’s next words were carefully chosen, picked from the universe’s cold cards without hesitation. “You don’t need it.” 

“What do you think you’ll see if I do?” The words came effortlessly from his mouth, calm, collected. He stopped advancing, straightening to stare into the dark remains of his father. A glimpse caught his lightsaber, lifeless in the palm of the man’s hand out of the corner of his vision. _He was still his dad. He was still his dad._

Han Solo stared downward, avoiding his eyes, right below the reflecting glass of his mask. The man’s broken eyes shone, glossy in his hidden ones. “The face of my son.”

His voice lost grip, sliding away off the bridge to fall to the deadly pit below. His hands moved from his sides upwards, slick at the palms with tingling heat. His fingers found the edges of his mask, colliding sickly with the awkward angles. Leather against armour, his fingers slid gracefully with the air of a bumbling mess, trying too hard to find home in the unfamiliar grooves. He grimaced, forcing himself to calm. Only then did they find the proper hold, only then did the mask click with distaste, and he went exposed to the world’s raging breath. 

He felt the cold first, on his skin, ice on damp skin that trembled under its touch. The smell came next, metal and fire, the Star’s own scent fiercely burning around him, furious at its containment. His mask came up, his fingers struggling to hold it in front of him. He stared into the world as it was without protection, feeling his lungs swell up in anxious hate. The man in front of him gawked, mouth agape only the slightest. 

The helmet dropped from his hands. Dully it smashed into the floor of the bridge, beneath him as he stood, glaring timidly into his father’s awestruck shattered eyes. The Force swirled around him, threatening to consume him, but he batted it away, focusing only on the man he once knew.

“...Your son is gone.” He felt his voice trembling, too scared to be filled with emotion. Wavering, his monotone cracked, but he pushed onwards, stepping once more forward. “He was weak and foolish like his father, so I destroyed him.”

“He is alive. I see him right before me: a strong, young Jedi.” Han Solo retaliated, cracked eyes shining with a hope so vain, a twisted, sinister hope that bore stains into his heart. “He will lead us to victory, against the First Order, and bring our government back together. You are still my son.” The man stretched out his arms in welcoming. “You will always be my son.”

He went to reach out, knowing that pose from the tips of the fingers to the scuffs of the boots. His father. This was his father before him, offering him a home. Offering him somewhere he could belong, where he could live happily again, like it had always been before. He took another step forward, slow, over his mask in rejection. He could live with the Rebels, train under his old Master, learn the old ways and live peacefully.

His father’s eyes gleamed. Not in the way they always had before, not in the crinkly smiling way that he loved. The gleam was sharp, the edge of a two-edged ‘saber that shone with betraying malice. He saw the eyes of a broken man, one who’s spirit had long died ago in the fire of war. He didn’t see his father. He saw a clone, an empty shell that was once the man he knew. A husk of what remained. No. This was not his father, who smiled at him. It was not his dad.

“No.” His voice grew cold with every understanding, cold with the reality of the warm reactor air. “The Supreme Leader is wise.”

“Son, that is not true,” his father tried to state, but he wasn’t listening. Why should he listen to anything that came out of that mouth? All lies. All lies. “Snoke is using you for your power. Hux just wants you by his side. When they get what they want, they’ll crush you.”

“Is it any different from Luke?” He felt his breath quicken in denial. Hux was a friend. Hux was a comrade. He had no other interests than taking down the Rebels. Snoke was his Master. “He’s leading you to your death. The Rebels cannot control the galaxy, cannot control the spirits of its people. You’ll lose.”

Han Solo said nothing. 

“...It’s too late.” Kylo felt his hands twitch. He maintained eye contact, ignoring his body’s betrayal. His mouth widened slightly, just enough to let the air wash away the hot at the back of his throat. The metal taste it brought made him want to choke. 

“No, it's not.” Han Solo seemed to be at the verge of breaking, shattered eyes pleading desperately for him. He tried to ignore the temptation, overwhelming guilt knotting a ball in his chest. His father was not here, only a tainted ball left by the Jedi. “Leave here with me. Come home.” The man paused. “Son. Please. For me. For Mom.”

His dad looked him in the eye, something mending together. “We miss you.”

Something in him froze. 

Pulsating, a quick numbing started at his heart, a stabbing denial that slickened with every breath. The frigid nothing seethed through his veins, corrupting every nerve, every motion. His torso, unmoving in frosty hate cried in protest as he moved an unyielding leg forward, frozen in accepting denial that nibbled holes in his heart. He wanted them. His heart panged angrily in his chest, calling out their names. _Mom. Dad._ He wanted them so bad. Temptation shone greedily right before him, ice enveloping his heart.

Moving onward, the cold went up, through his throat hampering the hot, then to his brain where it traced logical with distaste, and emotional with seducing temptation. His eyes burned with white-hot, as if the Star’s fierce core had a direct input into his pupils, filling them with its hot gas. Something in his throat cried out for justice, for his dad to take him, wrap an arm around his shoulder and led him back home where he belonged. He lusted for both their smiles, both the love and acceptance that would await his arrival home. He could see them, already there, smiling. 

**It wasn’t right.** He knew it. The arm that would wrap around his shoulder would be empty and hollow, the smiles false and too bright to be real. The love would be sugary sweet and full of falsetto, dead in spirit and laughter. Nothing in their family was alive anymore. Not alive at all. Not after when Luke came.

_But he could pretend, right? It would still feel the same, right?_

“I'm being torn apart.” His voice heaved a breath, shaky with anger, with want. His hands shook: it was too late to stop them; the nerves controlling them too preoccupied in icy lust that made him lose it. He bowed his head, letting the anger in him swell up and up until the hot in his eyes trickled down as liquid. He let the tears flow, the frustrated balls of water. Everything, he let it all go until he felt the sobs become cries of protest, cries of lustful denial that he knew could never be satisfied. _He just wanted his father back._ The tears cascaded downwards, streams of lonely aches that mourned things long past. _He just wanted his father back._

“...I want to be free of this pain.” He confessed to the shell of his father, head twitching with his unstable gasps for air. The man stepped forward, drawn by his actions with great intrigue. Soon enough, his dad’s boots filled his bowed perspective, uncaring and friendly. “I know what I have to do,” and he looked upwards, trying to find some trace, _some trace_ of the man he once knew, not just broken ash of what remained, “but I don't know if I have the strength to do it.”

His breaths grew ragged, tattered with grief. He stared into the husk, grasping the man. “Will you help me?” He finally got out, rasping in the tears of what he knew wasn’t there anymore.

“Yes. Anything.” His father answered. 

He slowly brought his gaze to his lightsaber in his father’s hand, drawing the man’s attention to it. His dad brought it up carefully, pointing the tip away from his body. His body, frozen, limped forward in a march, ditching his abandoned helmet in quiet rejection. Nothing was said between them as he stopped before Han Solo, reaching out hesitantly for the ‘sabers end. His father’s grip on it loosened, letting his frigid hands take it by both hands.

Their grip was shared, mutely understanding by both. He could feel the life-force of the man in front of him, faint of an echo in strength. _What wasn’t his dad any more._ The ice evaporated around his muscles, the Force whispering what had to be done into the air surrounding his ears. Hollow, the world narrowed around him, and he closed his eyes only for a moment, just to remember the days when everything was right. Liquid pooled from his eyes, but he stayed silent, relaxing.

The lightsaber switched on, and he opened his eyes to drive it forward.

Han Solo gasped, stiffening as his eyes flickered, shattered. The black robes he wore around him swirled in betrayal, angrily thrashing as the lightsaber shone through them, through the chest of the man he once knew as father. Not anymore. A hand, weak and frail with age reached upwards, jerking in movements as it stuttered over his cheek. A trace came, strong with love and acceptance.

“...Thank you, Father.” His voice whispered finally, as his hand shut the lightsaber to an end.

Han Solo smiled, and fell.


End file.
